" These," said Lite suddenly, " are different horse-tracks. They're smaller, for one thing. The bunch we followed out from the red machine rode bigger horses."
" And carried honey on one side and fresh meat on the other; and one horse was blind in the right eye," enlarged Pink banteringly, remembering the story of the Careful Observer in an old school-reader of his childhood days.
" Yes, how do you make that out, Lite ? I never noticed any difference in the tracks."
" The stride is a little shorter today for one thing." Lite looked around and grinned at Pink, as though he too remembered the dromedary loaded with honey and meat. " Ain't it, Applehead ? "
" It shore is," Applehead testified, his face bent toward the hot ground. " Ain't ary one uh the three that travels like they bin a travelin'—V that shore means something, now I'm tell in' yuh! " He straightened and stared worriedly ahead of 227
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them again. " Uh course, they might a picked up fresh horses," he admitted. " I calc'late they needed 'em bad enough, if they ain't been grainin' their own on the trip."
" We didn't see any signs of their horses being turned loose anywhere along," Lite pointed out with a calm confidence that he was right.
Still, they followed the footprints even though they were beginning to admit with perfect frankness their uneasiness. They were swinging gradually toward one of those isolated humps of red rock-ridges which you will find scattered at random through certain parts of the southwest. Perhaps they held some faint hope that what lay on the other side of the ridge would be more promising, just as we all find ourselves building air-castles upon what lies just over the horizon which divides present facts from future possibilities. Besides, these flat-faced ledges frequently formed a sharp dividing line between barren land and fertile, and the, hoof prints led that way; so it was with a tacit understanding that they would see what lay beyond the ridge that they rode forward.
Suddenly Applehead, eyeing the rocks specu-228
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latively, turned his head suddenly to look behind and to either side like one who seeks a way of escape from sudden peril.
" Don't make no quick moves, boys," he said, waving one gloved hand nonchalantly toward the flat land from which they were turning, " but foiler my lead 'n' angle down into that draw off here. Mebbe it's deep enough to put us outa sight, V mebbe it ain't. But we'll try it."
" What's up ? What did yuh see ? " Pink and Weary spoke in a duet, urging their horses a little closer.
"You fellers keep back thar 'n' don't act excited !" Applehead eyed them sternly over his shoulder. " I calc'late we're just about t' walk into a trap." He bent — on the side away from the ridge — low over his horse's shoulder and spoke while he appeared to be scanning the ground. " I seen gun-shine up among them rocks, er I'm a goat. 'N"' if it's ISTavvies, you kin bet they got guns as good as ours, and kin shoot mighty nigh as straight as the best of us — except Lite, uh course, that's a expert." He pointed aimlessly at the ground and edged toward the draw.
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" Ef they think we're jest follerin' a stray track, they'll likely hold off till we git back in the trail V start comin' on agin," he explained craftily, still pointing at the ground ahead of him and still urging his horse to the draw. " Ef they suspicion 't we're shyin' off from the ridge, they'll draw a fine bead V cut loose. I knowed it," he added with a lugubrious complacency. " I told ye all day that I could smell trouble a-comin'; I knowed dang well 't we'd stir up a mess uh fightin' over here. I never come onto this dang res'vation yit, that I didn't have t' kill off a mess uh Navvies before I got offen it agin.
" ISTow," he said when they reached the edge of the sandy depression that had been gouged deeper by freshets and offered some shelter in case of attack, " you boys jest fool around here on the aidge 'n' foller me down here like you was jest curious-like over what I'm locatin'. That'll keep them babies up there guessin' till we're all outa sight — meHbyl" He pulled down the corners of his mouth till his mustache-ends dropped a full inch, and lifted himself off his horse with a bored deliberation that was masterly in its convincingness. 230
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He stood looking at the ground for a moment and then began to descend leisurely into the draw, leading his horse behind him.
" You go next, Pink," Weary said shortly, and with his horse began edging him closer to the bank until Pink, unless he made some unwise demonstration of unwillingness, was almost forced to ride down the steep little slope.
" Don't look towards the ridge, boys," Applehead warned from below. " Weary, you come on down here next. Lite kin might' nigh shoot the dang triggers often their guns 'fore they kin pull, if they go t' work 'n' start anything."
So Weary, leaving Lite up there grinning sheepishly over the compliment, rode down because he was told to do so by the man in command. " You seem to forget that Lite's got a wife on his hands," he reproved as he went.
" Lite's a-comin' right now," Applehead retorted, peering at the ridge a couple of hundred yards distant. " Git back down the draw 's fur's yuh kin b'fore yuh take out into the open agin. I'll wait a minute 'n' see —"
" ~Ping-ng-ng! " a bullet, striking a rock on the 231
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edge of the draw fifty feet short of the mark, glanced and went humming over the hot waste.
" Well, now, that shows they got a lookout up high, 't seen me watchin' that way. But it's hard' t' git the range shootin' down, like that," Apple-head remarked, pulling his horse behind a higher part of the bank.
Close beside him Lite's rifle spoke, its little steel-shod message flying straight as a homing honeybee for the spitting flash he had glimpsed up there among the rocks. Whether he did any damage or not, a dozen rifles answered venomously and flicked up tiny spurts of sand in the close neighborhood of the four.
" If they keep on trying," Lite commented drily, " they might make a killing, soon as they learn how to shoot straight."
" 'S jest like them dang Injuns! " Applehead grumbled, shooing the three before him down the draw. " Four t' our one — it takes jest about that big a majority 'fore they feel comf'table about buildin' up a fight. Lead yore bosses down till we're outa easy shootin' distance, boys, 'n' then we'll head out f er where Luck ought t' be. If they 232
fixed a trap fer us, they've fixed another fer him, chances is, V the sooner us fellers git together the better show we'll all of us have. You kin see, the fway they worked it to split the bunch, that they ain't so dang anxious t' tie into us when we're t'gether—V that's why we can't git t' Luck a dang bit too soon, now I'm tellin' yuh! "
Weary and Pink were finding things to say, also, but old Applehead went on with his monologue just as though they were listening. Lite showed a disposition to stop and take issue with the shooters, who kept up a spiteful firing from the ridge. But Applehead stopped him as he was leveling his rifle.
" If yuh shoot," he pointed out, " they'll know jest where we air and how fast we're gittin' outa here. If yuh don't, unless their lookout kin see us movin' out, they got t' do a heap uh guessin' in the next few minutes. They only got one chancet in three uh guessin' right, 'cause we might be camped in one spot, 'n' then agin we might be crawlin' up closer, fer all they kin tell."
If they were guessing, they must have guessed right; for presently the four heard faint yells from behind them, and Applehead crawled up the bank 233
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to where he could look out across the level. What he saw made him slide hastily to the bottom again.
" They've dumb down and straddled their ponies," he announced grimly. " An' about a dozen is comin' down this way, keepin' under cover all they kin. I calculate mebby we better crawl our hosses 'n' do some ridin' ourselves, boys." And he added grimly, " They ain't in good shootin' distance yit, V they dassent show theirselves neither. We'll keep in this draw long as we kin. They're bound t' come careful till they git us located."